Author: mason.819

Berlin: The Final Push

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Throughout our trip, we frequently discussed the ways that World War II is presented and discussed between different nations. Our American perspective is of the Good War, the English collectively fought the People’s War, and France maintained resilient in resistance. These national memories are all generally positive. However, this is not the case for every nation. In Poland, we saw a nation who was devastated by the war only to come under an oppressive regime in the postwar era as well. Finally, in Germany, we saw a nation who started, lost, and then had to reckon with the atrocities of World War II.

Of all the places we visited, the German museums were the most objective and detailed in their presentation of the war. I believe this presentation of the war in its entirety stems from an effort by Germany to own up to its history. Here, WWII is not celebrated, only presented. With this presentation, one would be hard pressed to accuse the museums of glossing over or otherwise covering up any aspect of WWII. I find this to be a great success of the German narrative of the war. War, and particularly Germany’s ugly connection to WWII, is not glamorous. None of the museums we visited portrayed it as such and they were very open about the horrors committed by the Nazis. In this the Germans have given account of their part in the war without attaching any higher agenda other than that of remorse.

Our first museum in Berlin was the German Historical Museum.

Courtyard in the German Historical Museum.

The exhibit on World War II here began like others with an acknowledgment of the end of World War I and how its unstable peace influenced the interwar period. Unlike other museums, the discussion of the interwar period, the rise of the Nazi party, and the development of Hitler’s military state were the most detailed of our trip. The same was true of the museum’s discussion of the parts of the war that didn’t involve the Western Allies as directly, particularly the Eastern Front and the Holocaust. These areas often get brushed aside in favor of Western heroics but in the German museum they received their due diligence. This theme carried over as we visited the Topography of Terror Museum which discussed the development of the Nazi terror state under the Gestapo and SS. The pervasive employment of fear to bring the populace of a nation in line with the wishes of the state was the topic discussed here. This museum demonstrated again the unique history of Germany during WWII when compared with the other nations we visited.

Later we visited the German Resistance Museum and Memorial. This museum is situated at the Bendlerblock, headquarters of the Nazi Reserve Army and later the conspirators of the July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler. The plot, also known as Valkyrie, was organized by military officers who could not abide by the actions of Hitler’s regime. After their attempted assassination and coup failed, they were executed in the courtyard which now houses a memorial to all forms of German Resistance to the Nazis.

Memorial to those executed the night of July 20, 1944 in the aftermath of the Valkyrie Plot.

The museum discusses how German Resistance was far less common than in other areas and that those who did resist were truly the exception. Different rooms in the museum focus on different resistance groups and the running theme is that these were the bastions of society that the Nazi’s could not dominate. Try as he might, Hitler could never bring such things as the military leadership, clergy, or academia completely within his grasp. This owes to the nature of these organizations which transcend political power. Each one has existed before and after regimes around the world throughout history.

Memorial to German Resistance Movements

Our time in Berlin also featured visits to a few Soviet memorials erected in occupied East Germany after the war. These grandiose displays were less objective in their portrayal of the war.

Soviet memorial for the Battle of Berlin.

A common theme was the valiant, collective triumph of Communism over the evil of National Socialism. At Treptower Park large statues, murals, and quotes by Stalin dominate the large area and surround the central statue. This statue depicts a Soviet soldier crushing a swastika underfoot and is situated atop a mass grave of Soviet soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin.

Treptower Park.

Central statue and mass-grave.

Later, we visited the German-Russian museum. The museum is housed in the same building where the Russians forced Nazi Germany to sign a second, much harsher peace accord the day after signing its original surrender to the Allies. The exhibits here focused exclusively on the bloody war between Germany and the Soviet Union. The racial ideology and dedication of unprecedented resources on both sides lead to the bloody conflict that still pervades the memory of both nations.

We again confronted the Holocaust with our visit to the Wannssee House. This is where senior Nazi officers met on January 20, 1942 to discuss the Final Solution.

Wannssee House.

The museum within presents both the Functionalist (attributing the Holocaust to Nazi officials and bureaucrats working towards their understanding of Hitler’s goals) and Intentionalist (attributing the Holocaust solely to Hitler’s instruction) interpretations of the Holocaust but leans more towards the Intentionalist interpretation. Our discussion afterwards highlighted the merit of both arguments and what they mean for our understanding of the Holocaust and genocide. The Intentionalist argument makes the events of the Holocaust unique to the Nazis. The Functionalist argument holds that similar atrocities could be committed by any group unto another.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Wannssee House’s focus on the Intentionalist side recognizes that the Nazi leadership played a large part in the murder of Europe’s Jews. But, this interpretation also warrants criticism for inherently absolving idle German citizens of their part in allowing the Holocaust to happen.

It’s been one hell of a month and one that I won’t soon forget. This trip has taught me so much about the history of World War II and has also given me a deeper connection to that history by confronting it in-person. To anyone who helped make this trip a reality: thank you. To Dr. Steigerwald and Lauren Henry, who helped us navigate Europe and imparted lessons on academics and life alike: thank you. To my fellow travelers, with whom I’ve made countless wonderful memories: thank you. See you stateside!

Outside of the Reichstag, home of the Bundestag, Germany’s Parliament.

Bundestag chamber.

Berlin Cathedral during the day…

…and at night.

Brandenburg Gate.

Berlin’s Sony Center.

With Dr. Steigerwald “The man, the myth, the machine.”

My partner in crime and roommate, Patrick O’Connor. Outside the 1936 Olympic Stadium where our fellow Buckeye, Jesse Owens, won four gold medals.

When words fail

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Our time in Poland was marked by a reflection on some of the most atrocious aspects of World War II. This area was occupied by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union as part of the brutal fighting on the Eastern Front. We had two main visits while in Krakow. First to Oskar Schindler’s factory and second to the concentration/death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The Oskar Schindler museum offered the most in depth look at the Nazi occupation of Poland that we have seen on the trip. It provides an immense amount of context for the Nazi occupation. The exhibits detail the history of the Polish state as it relates to Nazi ideology. The Nazis didn’t believe Poland was a legitimate state and used this to justify their brutality in dealing with the Polish people. This museum also introduced some of the early methods that the Nazis used to separate Jews from the rest of society such as the deportation to ghettos and concentration camps. Oskar Schindler was originally a businessman looking to take advantage of the cheap labor the Jews offered. However, upon seeing the horrid conditions imposed upon the Jews, he began to offer aid in whatever form he could. Several video logs document some of the Jews who survived the Holocaust with Schindler’s help. Each of them spoke of a compassionate man who exemplified the best of humanity. The museum also speaks to the unique situation of Poland at the end of the war. There was no happy ending for the Poles; these people who had endured the horrors of occupation under both Hitler and Stalin now found themselves under the oppressive rule of the Soviet Union.

At Auschwitz-Birkenau we discussed the importance of language. Primo Levi wrote that: “Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man.” The horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau defy the ability of language. They exemplify the darkest evils that humanity is capable of when fear, instinct, and hate overcome rational thought and love. Our visit to Auschwitz was a harrowing experience. The installations displaying rooms full of human hair, shoes, pots and pans, glasses, and hairbrushes are overwhelming not just in their number but also what they represent. This destruction of all individuality defies adequate description. The monument to those murdered at Auschwitz was beyond striking. It features plaques in each language of those imprisoned in Auschwitz-Birkenau and English meant as a reminder and warning of the evils that took place at the camp. These plaques surround a central statue that depicts various aspects of the Holocaust. The whole monument expands far beyond these installations as they sit on multiple tiers of laid bricks, each of which represents one of the 1.5 million killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The experience was sobering to say the least, and the least is all there is to say. The site is a testament to the absolute evil humanity is capable of and visiting it has made these atrocities infinitely more palpable to me.

The infamous gates of Auschwitz I bearing the slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” or “Work Makes You Free”

Gas chamber at Auschwitz I

Main gate from inside Auschwitz II-Birkenau

Memorial at Auschwitz II-Birkenau

English plaque at Auschwitz II-Birkenau
“For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz-Birkenau. 1940-1945.”

Train tracks leading to the ruins of two crematoria at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Now the site of the memorial.

What is there to say about a massacre?

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Following London, our trip continued to northern France. We stayed in Bayeux and took daily excursions to the beaches of Operation Neptune, national cemeteries, and museums. The cemeteries and their distinct characteristics had the most profound impact on me. We visited cemeteries established by the United States, Great Britain, and Germany and each presented a different narrative of the war and how it is remembered. Observing these monuments, I was reminded of a quote that speaks to the idea of remembering the dead. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut said: “There’s is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead.” Each of these cemeteries says something about the massacre that was World War II.

The American cemetery was the one I knew most about prior to visiting. It is a grandiose display that pays tribute to the heroism of American soldiers who died during the liberation of Nazi-occupied Western Europe. To Americans, World War II is known as the Good War; we were victorious and came out of the war relatively unscathed. Fittingly, the cemetery is a celebration of the American war effort. It is not bombastic, but it is patriotic in a uniquely American way. The cemetery pays tribute to the good American boys who came across the sea to save the world from Hitler’s evil.

The cemetery overlooks Omaha beach where many American soldiers came ashore to liberate Western Europe.

Its rows of orderly, white headstones serve to impress the magnitude of American losses.

Rows of headstones at the American cemetery.

Memorials placed throughout the cemetery reinforce the narrative of good vs evil. This narrative is a celebration of the American cause for entering the war. The Americans helped win the war and did so at a comparably low cost. This is not to disparage the losses of American families related to the war, but the absence of civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure compared to other nations participating in the war are the reason why America remembers a Good War. American losses were important and meaningful, but they were also a magnitude of order lower than that of nations who saw their countryside ravaged and their civilian populations devastated. The American massacre, while tragic, is one that ultimately has a happy ending. These men died to secure a world safe for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Their sacrifice, while tragic, achieved the end it set out to.

John O. Fry, Jr. one of the Buckeye Twelve, Ohio State alumni who are buried at the American cemetery.

The German cemetery offers a stark contrast. Here there are rows of small, sober grave markers of the German soldiers who died during the Normandy landings. It is a much more somber place that seeks not to celebrate but to remember. Here there is nothing of the Nazi cause, only dead men. Little is said of the dead; those whose names are known are marked accordingly and those who unknown are simply labeled “A German Soldier.”

The German cemetery.

Among them, there are likely Nazi fanatics who were fully devoted to Hitler’s cause. However, there are likely also those men, young and old, who were sucked into the German war machine without much devotion at all to the cause they died for. Here these things do not matter. The cemetery only seeks to mark those among the many killed in World War II who were German and died at Normandy. This cemetery celebrates neither cause nor combatant. Instead it remembers the men who died because of their participation in the war, regardless of circumstance. I will be able to speak to this more fully after visiting Berlin but I believe this is reminiscent of the general German perspective of World War II. Germany was host to a hateful regime that perpetrated horrendous crimes against the world. As it emerged from occupation as a new nation, this history demanded to be dealt with. The Germans do not celebrate the war but they do not ignore it. Rather they mark the tragedy of the massacre so that it is not forgotten.

Finally, the British cemetery commemorates both a cause and cost of the war. Here the headstones are more personal; they bear the emblem of a soldier’s unit, his name, date of death, age, and a personal inscription from his loved ones.

F. H. Rigg. Age 26. Killed July 23, 1944.
“To the world he was just one but to us he was all the world. Wife and family.”

The British fought the People’s War and in their cemetery the fallen seem the most like people. Each headstone offers an intimate connection with the fallen and the family they left behind. The British cemetery also contains graves of Polish, Czech, Soviet, and German soldiers in addition to those dead from the British Empire. The inclusion of foreign graves shows that the People’s War isn’t exclusive to British people. Instead, the narrative focuses on the personal cost the war wrought on people throughout the world. The cemetery seeks to remind us that wars are fought by people and that each of those people leaves behind a life full of family and friends, some never to be seen again.

Central monument at the British cemetery.

Of all three, I found the British cemetery the most moving because of its articulation of loss at this much more personal level. This cemetery speaks not only to a massacre of soldiers and civilians but also the ravaged families that massacre left in its wake.

The three cemeteries all serve as a reminder of World War II, a massacre that claimed a terrible cost. Today, as every day since the war, we must wrestle with what and how we say of this massacre. We must be careful in this regard to do proper justice to the many facets of the war. The sacrifice of young men and civilians the world over should be commemorated and remembered. These tragedies define much of our world today but we must be careful not to idolize war. Idolizing war only leads to more war and more dead. Rather we should honor these dead by living for peace and a world with fewer massacres.

Graves of unknown soldiers at each cemetery.

In addition to the cemeteries, we visited several others sites in Bayeux, a small town in the north of France. We then moved on to Paris. Here are some pictures from both:

Pegasus Bridge

A crater at Pointe du Hoc

OHIO picture at Utah Beach

Mont-Saint-Michel

Centre Pompidou museum of modern art.

“International Klein Blue” by Yves Klein

Musée d’Orsay

Sunset OHIO along the Seine

“Stop! This is the Empire of the Dead.” Paris catacombs

The catacombs

Grand Musée de l’Armée (French Armed Forces Museum) at Les Invalides

The Louvre

“Winged Victory of Samothrace”

“Liberty Leading the People” by Eugène Delacroix

L’Arc de Triomphe

London

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I began my jaunt through Europe with a short and solitary visit to Dublin. I passed an enjoyable, if tired, day in Ireland but was ready to get on with the main trip. After a late morning flight and long tube ride into central London I met up with my colleagues and we got underway. Our purpose in London was to enjoy the city sights but also expand our understanding of the British history and mythology of World War II.

We saw the British perspective of the war from four main visits. The first was to the Churchill War Rooms. Here, the history of the war centers around the Battle of Britain and subsequent war planning from the underground bunker.

Map of Europe, Asia, and North Africa at the Churchill War Rooms.

A large part of the museum is also devoted to Churchill himself and his part in the war effort. The British narrative of the People’s War comes across in Churchill’s efforts to reassure the British people in the trying times of the Blitz. Churchill developed a charismatic public image to rally the British people of all walks around. The same evening, we enjoyed a dinner with Michael Handscomb who lived through the Blitz. The stories he told reflected a similar narrative. He recalled how Churchill’s encouragement helped assure the British people of both the necessity and inevitable results of their hardships. Our day trip to Bletchley Park continued the narrative of the people’s war. The site brought together some of England’s top minds to break and make use of information from the German Enigma code. The site recounts the many workers who left their lives behind to do their part in the British war effort. The commentary expands to the successful maintenance of secrecy surrounding the site in the postwar era.

Hallway in one of the huts at Bletchley Park.

Our final visit was to the Imperial War Museum. The museum was founded following World War I and the detail of its exhibits reflects this. The section covering WWI was impressively detailed and immersive. This area also reflected the People’s War narrative and showed the contributions of British citizens during WWI. Meanwhile, the sections covering World War II, the postwar era, and modern wars were comparatively sparse. The museum houses several impressive artifacts from these eras but the details and explanations for them left something to be desired. This is with the exception of the Holocaust exhibit. This portion of the museum is a somber account of the Holocaust from its earliest forms to the hasty cover-up attempts made as the Soviets advanced on Germany.

The British Imperial War Museum.

Beyond sites related to the war, I experienced several of London’s cultural and tourist highlights. I visited the homes of royalty at both Buckingham and Kensington Palace. I wasn’t particularly impressed by either mansion but their adornments inside and out were an impressive spectacle.

Gardens at Kensington Palace.

We also toured the Tower of London where we saw the famous Crown Jewels and an impressive display of historical arms and armor. The last stop I made relating to the royalty was at Westminster Abby. The Abby was a gorgeous display of architecture both in sheer size and minute detail.

Westminster Abbey.

We took a trip to the British Museum where I was overwhelmed by the number of ancient artifacts on display and my own relative naivety of the many societies on display there, I am a modern historian after all. Despite knowing little about the civilizaitons themselves, I was awestruck by the magnitude of the collection of treasures from the ancient world.

The King’s Library collected by King George III and housed in the British Museum.

One modern piece at the museum struck me a bit more than others. It was titled Cradle to Grave; the display contained two woven quilt that had small individual pockets containing prescription drug capsules. One quilt represented the estimated drug intake by a woman in her lifetime and the other a man in his. Each tells a story in the drugs that are contained in different parts. The man takes asthma medication in his early life but enjoys relatively good health until his later life, where he takes as many pills in his final ten years of life as in his first sixty-six. Similarly, the woman takes contraceptive pills when young and later is successfully treated for breast cancer. Surrounding the two quilts are pictures and medical instruments from the everyday lives of a variety of individuals. These pictures show times of joy and hardship in relation to the medical experiences of several people.

I also took time to indulge in a few of London’s artistic offerings. One evening I went to see a performance on the West End titled The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

The Gielgud Theatre.

The show was a well-made representation of the life and perspective of an autistic teenager as he navigates a particularly turbulent series of events. The set and lighting work was where the show really shined. A mostly blank space defined by a grid transformed time and again throughout the show with the help of different lighting setups.

Set of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.”

While it’s West End run is ending, the show is running in New York and will hopefully be around for years to come. I highly recommend it. My other major artistic venture was to the Tate Modern. Here I found a variety of displays of new and innovative art that pushed boundaries of all kinds. I was particularly fond of the exhibit focused on interaction and blurring the line between artist and observer. Another interesting display was hard to photograph but poignant in it’s message. It featured two television sets which were running famous broadcasts of U.S. President Richard Nixon. Each screen was surrounded by a magnet coil which alternated between on and off, distorting the image. It’s commentary on Nixon himself, broadcast media, and mixed messages was particularly striking in today’s political climate with widespread mistrust and questionable federal actions. The Tate’s installations were an amazing way to spend my last night in London.

 

“In Wetin You Go Do?” by Otobong Nkanga

Big Ben, the London Eye, and Winston Churchill our last night in London.